Welcome to the MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my twenty first episode. Tonight, I want to talk to you about prayer. Prayer is fascinating to me because it seems like everyone knows about it and yet it is so frequently misunderstood. Also, prayer involves the mind and consciousness – which is a domain that many other worldviews focus on as well. It’s also an area of study that scientists know very little about. Some traditions treat prayer as similar to meditation. I think there’s something to that. Right out of the gate I’m going to tell you that God hears and sees everything – including your prayers. Whether He acknowledges your prayer depends on a couple of factors that we will discuss later in the episode.
But first, let’s unpack what is commonly believed about prayer. When most people think about prayer, they think of being in a quiet place and talking to or sending up thoughts to God. It’s like a one way conversation and it’s a gamble as to whether or not you get an answer. Even if you do get an answer, it’s not as if God is literally speaking back to you. Prayer usually involves petition – or asking for God to satisfy a felt need. Many people think that you can pray for anything from your mortgage approval to getting a promotion at work. It’s common for people to offer thoughts and prayers on behalf of someone else when they are going through a difficult time. Recently, the idea of people offering up thoughts and prayers during a tragedy has taken on some backlash. Many people in the secular community perceive the idea of thoughts and prayers as an excuse to avoid taking action.
So, that is a flyover of the general public conception of prayer. The first point that I want to address is this idea of prayer being a petition to God. Is it right to ask God for things? The answer to this is yes, depending on what those things are. Many people refer to John 15:16 as a way of justifying asking God for anything you want. This verse reads: “You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.” The problem with pulling this verse out of context is that you lose the part where Jesus is saying that you remain in His love if you obey his commands. He says that if you obey His commands you will be overfilled with joy. The command He immediately follows this with is for us to love each other as He has loved us. So the verse about the Father giving us whatever we ask for in Jesus’ name is targeted at us having what we need in order to love others and fulfill God’s purpose for our lives.
It’s good to ask God for things. The best way to know whether He will acknowledge your request is to test it against Scripture. God will never contradict Himself, so if you ask for something that is unbiblical you can be certain you won’t get it. Or maybe more importantly – if you do get it you can be certain it is not from God. Sometimes, you can ask God for what you think you want but he will deny you because granting your prayer is not in your best interest. Pastor Greg Laurie from Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside California puts it this way:
If the request is wrong, God says “No.” If the timing is wrong, God says “Slow.” If you are wrong, God says “Grow.” But if the request is right, the timing is right, and you are right, God says “Go.”
In the Garden of Gethsemane, just before being taken by the Roman soldiers for his crucifixion, Jesus prayed to the Father: “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Jesus is showing us that even He was not exempt from the will of God the Father. He is also showing us that His desire was to be in the will of the Father, not in His own will. Jesus is God, so His will is always in unison with the Father’s. This passage is meant for us. Christ is telling us that sometimes we have to go through the suffering to get to the best outcome. We can’t possibly know why that is until we get there. But God wants us to know that even if He doesn’t prevent you from suffering – it’s not because He doesn’t love you.
One way of thinking about this is when parents take their child to the doctors office for a vaccination. In the eyes of the child, there’s a scary man in a white coat with a sharp needle who is coming to hurt him. His parents have the power to take him out of this situation. Why could they possibly want him to go through this pain and suffering? It isn’t until the child grows older and learns about the necessity of vaccinations that he understands his parents were subjecting him to the doctor’s appointment out of love for him. So ask God for things, but if He doesn’t grant them to you, understand that it’s because you have to go through something necessary to arrive at the best outcome.
Now, there’s another point in the Garden of Gethsemane that reveals more information about the purpose of prayer. When Christ returns from praying to the Father, He finds His disciples sleeping. Matthew 26:40-41 picks up with:
Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”
Christ is equivocating prayer with keeping watch and says that it will prevent us from giving in to temptation. I want to say a few things about temptation. Our cultural understanding of temptation leads us to think of things like eating bad foods or drinking too much alcohol. Guilty pleasures and things like that. But I think the temptation that Christ is warning against is something much darker. Inside each of us is a potential totalitarian. When I say totalitarian, I mean it in the sense that we have the proclivity to think that we already know everything we need to know about life. When you’re thinking this way, it can become very easy to fall in love with your own theories. If that happens, you shut off your ability to learn anything new. But it’s worse than that. When you are a totalitarian, you take on a specific understanding of the world and you oppress anyone who resists that understanding.
For example, let’s say that you believe all people should wear winter boots all of the time. You’ve mapped out your reasoning and you believe that it’s the best solution for all people. Then summer comes and it starts to get hot outside. Everywhere you look, you see people complaining about how hot their boots are. You need to censor their complaints because they are pointing out a flaw in your perfect theory. As summer drags on, people begin taking off their boots entirely. You can’t handle it. Why would these people be so stupid? What is wrong with them that they cannot see what you see? For the good of the world you must do something about it. You start patrolling your city and attacking anyone who isn’t wearing their boots. You need to make them disappear because they are a threat to your ideals. All the while you actually believe you are doing the best thing you can do for the good of everyone.
That’s a very basic example of what it’s like to be a totalitarian. How do we guard against that? We believe in an authority that is higher than ourselves. If we believe that God’s Word is truth, then we are immune to totalitarian tendencies. Christ is telling us we should pray so that we can remember who we are in relation to God. We pray so that we can keep focused on the big picture and not become lost to our limited senses.
Okay, so we know that it is good to ask God for things and that we should pray frequently so that we remember who we are in relation to God. There’s one more element that I want to touch on with you when it comes to prayer. That is, discovery of new information. If you’ve never heard of lucid dreams, a lucid dream is when a person is asleep and dreaming – but they are aware that they are in the dream. When most people dream, they don’t realize that they were in a dream until they wake up. But with lucid dreamers, they can actually be cognizant of the fact that they are in the dream while it is happening. You can train yourself to have lucid dreams. People who have lucid dreams have reported learning things in the dream world that they were unaware of before dreaming. New information. So how is it that a person could gather new information while asleep without some sort of external feed? Unless there is an external feed.
We know so little about consciousness that some psychologists have suggested that information can rise up into our minds out of what seems like nowhere. Have you ever had a light bulb moment where something just came to you? Have you ever heard someone say “let me sleep on it?” I want you to take a second and try some mindfulness meditation for me.
Find somewhere comfortable to sit and listen to my words. Close your eyes. Let gravity settle you into your seat. Feel all of the little pressures of sitting. Now, start noticing your breathing. Focus on each breath. See if you can cover an inhalation with your attention from the beginning to the time you exhale, then back again. Now, while you are focusing on your breath, see if you can notice thoughts appearing. Don’t try to think about anything, just notice each thought as it passes through your consciousness. These thoughts seem random, but what if they’re not? You can open your eyes now.
I’ll admit, I don’t have evidence to show that these thoughts are coming from some place. But I will say this. If you are having a hard time in your life, try sitting up on your bed at night when everything has settled down. Then close your eyes and ask God if you are doing anything that is making your situation worse than it needs to be. Be prepared for an answer. That’s the third reason why I think prayer is a good thing – God will give you new information that you can use to improve your own life and the lives of those around you. Remember, always check this new information against the Bible because if it contradicts God’s Word, then it is not from God.
So far we’ve talked about three reasons why you should pray. First, you should pray to ask God for things. There is solid biblical evidence to show that He wants us to do this. But we must also remember that the request needs to be right, the timing needs to be right, and we need to be right in our maturity. Second, we should pray so that we remember who we are in relation to God. The best way to prevent hurling yourself blindly down the wrong path in life is to accept that there is an authority greater than yourself. You simply can’t know enough about reality to be your own authority without making tragic mistakes. Third, we should pray so that we can discover new information. I think this third reason is my favorite one because I believe God wants to equip us with the information that we need to thrive in His purpose for us. One of the most certain ways you can access new information is to sit in a quiet place and ask God what it is that you’re doing to make your situation worse than it needs to be.
So we know why we should pray. It turns out that Jesus gave us instruction as to how we should pray as well. Matthew 6:5-14:
“When you pray, don’t be like hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”
“When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Pray like this:
Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.”
“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Notice here how Christ is saying that prayer is the way for us to confess our sins to God and seek His forgiveness. He’s also saying that you should pray in private. There are times when group prayer can be powerful but the most intimate moments of prayer should be reserved for you and God. Notice the structure of the Lord’s Prayer. The first lines are praises to God for who He is and what He’s done. Asking for God’s Kingdom to come soon is a good way for us to maintain perspective on the big picture and not get dragged down into the daily turmoils of life.
After thanking God, we ask Him to give us what we need in accordance with His will. Be prepared that what you need might not be what you think you need. Seeking God’s forgiveness for your sins ensures that you won’t build a wall of guilt between yourself and God. You can’t love God if you feel guilty before Him. The final line is asking God to prevent us from yielding to temptation so that we may be delivered from the evil one – or Satan. Remember, Satan’s original sin was pride – like a totalitarian, he thought he could be God.
You should pray. It helps you maintain a view of the big picture and reminds you that you are in God’s hands. You should ask God for what you need, and be courageous enough to accept it when He answers. You should always test everything you learn from prayer against the Bible – so you can be sure it comes from God. You should keep your most intimate prayers private, and just spend time talking to God. Use prayer to build your relationship with Him.
Finally, never give up praying. In Matthew 7:7-8 Jesus says:
Keep on asking, and you will receive what your ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
Remember, God wants the best for you, even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes. Never stop pursuing Him. Chase Him down and focus on Him. Call out to Him in prayer and see if he reveals anything to you. Never stop learning, never stop growing, never stop having conversation, and have faith that He is with you always.
If you find this content valuable, feel free to share it and to use it in your own studies. If you’d like to support this podcast, you can do so at www.patreon.com/michaelhbaun. There is a link in the description. Your generosity goes a long way to promoting the growth of this enterprise and the cause of free speech. Thank you all for joining me this evening, and I will see you in the next episode.
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